For any group G we can form the lower central series of normal subgroups by taking $G_0 = G$, $G_1 = [G,G]$, $G_{i+1} = [G,G_i]$. We can check this gives a normal chain

$G_0 > G_1 > ... > G_i >...$

In the case where $G = \pi_1(X)$ The first quotient $H^1 = G_0/G_1$ is well known to be the first homology group (which has well known geometric content).

Question 1:

Are there geometric interpretations of further quotients $G_i/G_{i+1}$?

What does the length (finite or infinite) of the chain tell us geometrically about X?

We can also form the mod-p central series by taking $G^p_0 = G$, $G_{i+1}^p = (G_i^p)^p[G,G^p_{i}]$ and then again form the quotients $V_i^p = G^p_i/G^p_{i+1}$. In this case these are modules (vector spaces) over $Z_p$.

Question 2:

What are interpretations of these $V^p_i$? What can we say if we know their dimension (as a vector space) or if they're non-zero? I'm particularly interested in small i (= 1,2,3,4), and small p (= 2 say).

Question 3:

Are there good methods for calculating the $V_i^p$ (both direct and indirect)? For instance, a direct way would be to calculate them from a presentation of the fundamental group. Is this tractable (with software such as GAP) if the presentation is "small" in some sense? Can I bound their dimension (above or bellow)?

Are there indirect ways of calculating these vector spaces? As homology/cohomology of some other object on X? As something else? Group homology?

Question 4:

Is there a good source for these types of questions? Has somebody worked out the V's for compact surfaces (orientable or not)?

Answers or (even better) references to work on these types of questions would be great. I'm especially interested in examples worked out for surfaces and small i.

n-logarihm is something which "feel" n-th quotient of Gal(P^1/{A,B,C}) as far as I heard, sorry cannot say more for the moment... may be this arxiv.org/abs/alg-geom/9202022 Classical Polylogarithms R. Hain can help
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Alexander ChervovJan 31 '12 at 20:14

It's also worth mentioning that nilpotent spaces (spaces $X$ for which $\pi_1(X)$ is nilpotent and acts nilpotently on $\pi_k(X)$ for all $k\geq 2$) are an important class of spaces in homotopy theory. This is due to the fact that they admit "nice" Postnikov systems and as such behave well with respect to localization, making them amenable to the tools of rational homotopy theory (see this question and answers for more details).

There's Gromov's theorem, which almost gives a characterization of when the lower central series has finite termination in the trivial group when $G$ is finitely generated (giving a partial answer to the second part of Question 1).

Stallings has a nice application of lower central series to study maps
between groups. This has been applied to get lower bounds on the growth
of $p$-nilpotent subgroups under various conditions by Shalen-Wagreich
and Lackenby. In particular, Shalen-Wagreich use the lower $p$-central
series to show that a 3-manifold $M$ with $rank(H_1(M;Z_p))\geq 3$ has
infinite fundamental group (although now this may be deduced from the geometrization
theorem).

Examples where the lower $p$-central series can be computed come from
analytic pro-$p$ groups. For a sample result, this was used by Boston
and Ellenberg to show the existence of towers of 3-manifolds which
are rational homology spheres (using examples of Calegari-Dunfield).

Addendum: Stallings' sequence with $N=G_1$, $Q=G/G_1=H_1(G)$ gives the exact
sequence
$$ H_2(G)\to H_2(G/G_1)\to G_1/G_2 \to 0$$
since $H_1(G)\to H_1(G/G_1)$ is an isomorphism. Notice that $G/G_2$ is a
central extension of $G/G_1$ by $G_1/G_2$. To figure out which central
extension, you take $H_2(G/G_1)/im\{H_2(G)\to H_2(G/G_1)\}$.

I think there's (sort of) a geometric interpretation of this, by dualizing.
Consider $H^2(G/G_1;Q) \cong \wedge^2 H^1(G/G_1;Q)$ by taking cup products.
If you consider the map $H^2(G/G_1;Q)\to H^2(G)$, then you see that the image
is $\cup^2 H^1(G;Q)$. Dualizing, you see that
the rank of the torsion-free part of $G_1/G_2$ is equal to the dim. of the kernel of the map $H^2(G/G_1;Q)\to H^2(G;Q)$, which is equal to
$dim \wedge^2 H^1(G;Q)-dim \cup^2 H^1(G;Q)$.

What are the simplest example where the p-central series quotients are computed? Best for me is if it's something "common" like a surface of small genus. Is there a machine or should i just try to do it by hand directly?
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Anthony BakFeb 1 '12 at 5:50

The analytic example is simplest, I would say. It looks essentially like $SL(2,\mathbb{Z}_p)$ (here, $\mathbb{Z}_p$ is the $p$-adic integers for some prime $p$) after taking the congruence kernel to $SL(2,\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z})$. After that, one obtains a tower of $p$-covers of rank 3 each time. In the Boston-Ellenberg example, they prove an analogous thing for a particular 3-manifold, whose pro-$p$ completion is this congruence kernel.
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Ian AgolFeb 1 '12 at 6:33

A special case you might find informative: If $L$ is a link in $S^3$, then Chen-Milnor theory gives you a presentation of the link group $\pi=\pi_1(S^3-L)$ modulo some deeper terms of the the lower central series of $\pi$, and hence some information about some of the early lower central factors that you're asking about. Particularly neat is that this presentation is directly in terms of combinatorial invariants (linking number, Milnor invariants) of the link, and thus gives concrete interpretations to various cohomological invariants that arise from the algebraic topology viewpoint (cup product, Massey products, etc.)

Also worth mentioning is the gadget you get by gluing all of these lower central quotients together, namely the associated graded Lie algebra. (And you can repeat for the lower central p-series, and several other relevant series as well). There's a good amount known about these Lie algebras: For example, John Labute's "The Lie Algebra Associated to the Lower Central Series of a Link Group and Murasugi's Conjecture" (and the rest of Labute's paper for that matter. In particular, some amazing ties to "arithmetic topology" and number-theoretically interesting Galois groups).

Do you know some more sources that use the associated graded Lie algebra? Is there a good source that summarizes the known connections between it and some geometry? More examples where it's explicitly calculated? This seems like a good start.
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Anthony BakFeb 1 '12 at 6:15

I found some more papers from Labute that calculate the associated graded Lie Algebra in some simple cases (groups with particularly simple presentations). He gives formulas for the dimensions of the graded pieces. Thanks for the pointer in that direction.
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Anthony BakFeb 1 '12 at 7:00